French Onion Soup

Thought I'd share this recipe that I made the other day. The Hubs is a big fan of it and I'd never made it for him before, so why not? I don't have an exact recipe, but it's not like you can really mess this one up.

1. I sautéed about 3 cups of white, yellow and red onions, and 2 shallots, which had been sliced very thinly, in about 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1/4 cup of margarine (I use Smart Balance) or you could use butter if you choose. I let the onions sauté for about 30 minutes on a medium low heat, not high enough to let the onions get brown. You want them to get all nice and soft and transluscent. I added 1 tsp of flour to the onions and stirred for a couplte of minutes until the flour was throroughly mixed in.

2. I added 4 cups of beef stock and 1/4 cup of white wine to the pot. I've seen various recipes calling for white or red wine or sherry. I used the white wine because I had just that much left in the bottle from the last recipe I made which required white wine and because when I tried to take the cork out of the bottle of sherry it broke off and I couldn't be bothered to fish out the rest of the cork at that moment. Then I added some pepper, a bay leaf and some allspice. I didn't add any salt because frankly the beef stock had enough salt in it. I let the pot simmer on low for at least a half hour.

3. While that was going on, I sliced up a demi-baguette I'd bought that day at Trader Joe's. Mmmmm, the bread was nice and crusty. I lightly toasted it and popped the pieces in bowls in preparation for the next step.

4. I ladled the soup over the bread, making sure to get a lot of onions in each bowl...that IS the point afterall.

5. I put sliced pieces of swiss cheese over the soup, letting corners of the cheese hang over the edge of the bowl. It's best if you can put the bowls in a broiler or large enough toaster oven to melt and brown the cheese. But I've never even been able to get the broiler door open on our oven and I don't like the idea of food cooking so close to the floor (since the broiler is at the bottom of our oven) and our toaster oven wasn't big enough for this task. So I put the bowls of soup in the oven on 450° for about 20 minutes until the cheese was nice and bubbly and brown.

Be careful...I've heard more people say they burn themselves on French Onion Soup! There is just something irresistable about that bubbly cheese, but the soup below is absolutley scalding...hehehe. Mmmm, so, so good. I did NOT burn myself, nor did the Hubs...so all was good. Here was the finished product...